Spoiler is not a role the Bedford High boys' basketball team has had the luxury of playing this season as one of the favorites in Division I. The Bulldogs had their opportunity on Tuesday, though, as...

Publisher's Notebook: The candidate who can spell the name of every 80's sports car wins

SCOTT BROWN has misspelled DeLorean. This is outrageous. It should be sufficient cause for his immediate dismissal from serious consideration in the race for U.S. Senate from New Hampshire. If he had any self-respect, he would voluntarily leave the field.

Fortunately, Boston.com, an online arm of the Boston Globe, spotlighted this serious issue and brought it to public attention.

In fact, it was the site’s lead news item a couple of Sundays ago. As upset as I was that our own news organization didn’t have this breaking story, I was excited to see that a major Boston news site was on top of it.

I was also impressed that a top New Hampshire Democrat, Kathy Sullivan, called out candidate Brown on this issue on her Twitter account, even though she also misspelled DeLorean.

Just when I think the news media and politicians have given up on the important stuff and are dwelling on frivolous things like government responsibility, health care costs and immigration, something like the “DeLorean issue’’ pops up. My confidence is restored.

Let this be fair warning to candidates: The Union Leader and UnionLeader.com will be conducting pop-up spelling contests in future interviews and in debates on every level.

I am also pleased to report that the media have not lost faith in polling as another main means of filling up space and time. Some people think polls are not as crucial to understanding the issues as, say, actually reporting on the issues. But what do they know? They probably can’t spell Edsel or Studebaker.

Granted, some polling is stupid and wasteful, such as when people are asked where they stand on frivolous things like government responsibility, health care costs and immigration.

But most of the time, polls are an outstanding way to find out which politician’s name is better known (usually it’s the one who is already in office) and which one has the most money. (You want to give money to the one with the most money, so that he or she will have more money and do well in the next poll.)

It is also very important to know if a candidate is now or ever was a member of the Communist Party or a resident of a state other than New Hampshire.

The voters might forgive the Commie part (especially if the candidate says he or she was just a dupe). But one thing the New Hampshire voter won’t stand for is a candidate who comes from somewhere else.

That’s because most of the voters moved here from somewhere else, and they know how to spell DeLorean.

Write to Joe McQuaid at Publisher@unionleader.com or on Twitter @deucecrew.